Free Turn Left at the Cow by Lisa Bullard

Kenny’s sister or the deputy or Mr. Svengrud or the bait money.” Iz opened her mouth to say something but I kept right on going. “I’ll talk about them all again tomorrow. But right now, uh-uh.”
    It felt good—really good—talking to Iz about everything. But I wanted to think through this Gram thing some more before I called the FBI hot line, and if that meant our conversation was over for now, that was how it had to be.
    Iz pulled her knees up and wrapped her arms around them. “Okay. What do you want to talk about, then?”
    My mind went as blank as a flat screen when the cable goes out. It was like Ma always says: I didn’t think things all the way through. It just hadn’t occurred to me that Iz would stick around once I’d told her I didn’t want to talk about the money anymore—I mean, that was why she was hanging out with me, right? No way I was going to be able to come up with something else interesting to say. With the whole school switch-over, I had somehow become a complete dimwad at boy-meets-girl stuff. And Iz had made it clear there were land mines planted everywhere if I asked her the wrong question about herself. What did that leave us to talk about? Toxic chemical spills? The economic meltdown?
    Finally, out of desperation, I said, “Uh . . . we could play ‘I’d rather.’”
    â€œâ€˜I’d rather’ what?” she asked.
    â€œJust ‘I’d rather,’” I said. “It’s this game we used to play at my old school. My language arts teacher, Mrs. Z., she had us play it every Monday. She’d ask an ‘I’d rather’ question, something that’s personal but not personal-personal, and then everybody in class had to write an essay explaining why they chose the answer they did. And if she picked your answer as the best one, you won a prize. It was . . . fun,” I said weakly.
    Any minute I was sure the stars were going to jump out of their constellations and spell out the word
dweeb
across the sky. I mean, there I was, alone with this hot girl, and I decided the thing we should do was play language-arts games? That was, like, all-star dweeb, man. World-heavyweight dweeb. Take-your-mother-to-prom dweeb.
    â€œYeah, I guess it sounds . . . fun,” said Iz. “But I don’t think I get it.”
    I knew it was already going to take hours of painful surgery to get the “dork” tattoo removed from my rep. There was no point in trying to backpedal. So I said, “Okay, here. It’s like if I say, ‘Would you rather take a time machine into the future or into the past,’ what would you answer?”
    Iz lay her cheek down onto her pulled-up knees with her face turned toward me, and I could see her wrinkle up her nose while she thought about it. “You go first,” she said. “What would you rather?”
    â€œI’d rather go to the future every time, man. It can’t get here soon enough for me.”
    â€œI think I’d rather go back to the past—it’s like getting a do-over,” said Iz slowly. She turned her face away and looked straight ahead. “Okay, do me another one.”
    â€œThis one’s easy,” I said. “When I get stuck somewhere, I’d rather be . . .” I stretched out the “be” really long while I thought about my own answer. According to Deputy Dude, I was definitely stuck for the duration. So where would I rather be? Right that minute, sitting on the end of the dock in the deepest part of night, noticing the way that Iz’s dark hair divided across her shoulders when she leaned forward to hug her knees, I couldn’t think of anyplace.
    â€œI’d rather be swimming,” she said. “You know how when you’ve done a few laps you get in that zone—your mind just goes blank and the water lifts you up and you’re strong but loose, all at the